Furred, feathered blessed at North Beach Festival

NORTH BEACH FESTIVAL

Casey Newton

Published
4:00 am PDT, Monday, June 18, 2012

Father Gregory Coiro blesses Starbucks, Kathleen Hewtson's angora bunny, at the annual Blessing of the Animals at The Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi during the North Beach Festival in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, June 17, 2012. less

Father Gregory Coiro blesses Starbucks, Kathleen Hewtson's angora bunny, at the annual Blessing of the Animals at The Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi during the North Beach Festival in San Francisco, Calif., ... more

Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle

Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle

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Father Gregory Coiro blesses Starbucks, Kathleen Hewtson's angora bunny, at the annual Blessing of the Animals at The Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi during the North Beach Festival in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, June 17, 2012. less

Father Gregory Coiro blesses Starbucks, Kathleen Hewtson's angora bunny, at the annual Blessing of the Animals at The Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi during the North Beach Festival in San Francisco, Calif., ... more

Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle

Furred, feathered blessed at North Beach Festival

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Inside the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi on Sunday, the congregation had grown unruly.

Many parishioners barked. Others screeched. Only the rabbits seemed to be minding their manners.

So it is at the blessing of the animals, among the highlights of the 58th annual North Beach Festival. The sprawling outdoor event took over the neighborhood with art, music, shopping and more.

Inside the shrine, Father Gregory Coiro welcomed scores of people who had come seeking divine favor for their companions.

"Given that this is San Francisco, I am surprised that some of you didn't come dressed as animals," he said. "But given that this is San Francisco, I am grateful that you're dressed."

Another sign it was San Francisco: In lieu of bringing their animals to church, some people showed Coiro pictures on their smart phones and asked him to bless those. (He warned them their electronics might not exactly regard holy water as a blessing.)

"Where else would this happen but San Francisco?" said Lauren Zanolli, who ventured into the shrine on a whim.

Among the blessed was a blue-eyed 11-year-old Siberian husky named Becca who suffers from Cushing's disease.

"I haven't been to church in years," said Becca's owner, Gale Watlington, who brought her in from Potrero Hill. "I figured she needed a blessing."

On the street, hundreds of fairgoers walked through the neighborhood, taking in the spectacle.

Some merchants grumbled about the rising booth fees ($700 this year) and a downturn in sales (some said returns were down 50 percent from last year).

Elizabeth Ashcroft set up shop in a booth on Grant Street outside Maggie Magarry's Irish Pub. There she sold her prints of popular North Beach landmarks, from Caffe Trieste to Tosca to Maggie Magarry's itself.

"There's a lot of history here," said Ashcroft, who works in an office above North Beach's Tosca Cafe. "I can't turn around without people saying, "Why haven't you done this place yet?' It's not the bohemian scene that it once was. But it has retained a certain genuine character."